-Press release from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Swaraj Abhiyan in the Supreme Court on the severe drought conditions in the country had drawn the attention of the Court to the inadequate effort of the Central and state governments in implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), amongst other welfare programmes. In its last judgment on issues of MGNREGA workers on 13 May...

-TheWire.in Studies from Chhattisgarh and other states show that most private hospitals force people to pay additional money even after using health insurance. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) or the National Health Insurance Scheme, was initiated in Chhattisgarh in 2009 for below poverty line (BPL) families. In 2012, Chhattisgarh expanded the scheme to non-BPL families as well, through the Mukhyamantri Swasthya Bima Yojana (MSBY), making it a universal scheme. Under the...

-The Indian Express Exclusion and denial of benefits to the poor needs urgent attention The news last month of the starvation death of an 11-year-old girl in the Simdega district in Jharkhand, allegedly because of denial of PDS ration due to Aadhaar linking problems, is appalling. The Aadhaar ecosystem definitely needs to pass a stringent welfare test much more crucially than the privacy test. Aadhaar undeniably has potential, and can perhaps even be...

-Livemint.com Global Hunger Index 2017 is a grim reminder of the huge disconnect between India’s relatively high levels of growth and its low ranks on human development It took the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari from Jharkhand’s Simdega district to remind the country that hunger and starvation of young children is still a reality in India. This was not the first such incident. Last month, three brothers in Karnataka also died under...

-Scroll.in The recent starvation death in Simdega epitomises a much larger problem of Aadhaar-related exclusion from the public distribution system in Jharkhand. The recent death of 11-year old Santoshi Kumari in Simdega district of Jharkhand has rightly stirred the country’s conscience. The context of this tragedy, however, is poorly understood, not least because of the Jharkhand government’s obfuscation. According to the family’s video testimonies, Santoshi died after starving for eight days. Even...